1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink-jet head and, particularly, to an ink-jet head used for generating droplets of ink for a so-called "ink-jet recording system".
2. Description of the Prior Art
An ink-jet head, which is adopted in ink-jet recording systems, is generally provided with a fine ink discharging port (or orifice), an ink flow path, and elements for generating an ink discharging pressure arranged in the ink flow path.
Heretofore, there have been known various methods for fabricating ink-jet heads, for example, a method comprising shaping fine grooves on a plate of glass or metal by cutting or etching and then bonding or pressing the plate thus processed to another appropriate plate to form ink flow paths.
Ink-jet heads produced by the conventional methods suffer from the following drawbacks.
An ink flow path having a constant resistance to flowing ink is hardly obtained due to roughness of the interior wall surface of the ink flow path when it is fabricated by cutting, or due to stains on the flow path which is caused according to the difference in the etching rate. Consequently, ink-jet properties of the resulting ink-jet head would be varied.
Also in a cutting process, the plate is liable to be broken or cracked resulting in lowering the production yield, and in etching process, many steps are disadvantageously required resulting in a high production cost.
In addition, the above mentioned conventional methods suffer from the drawbacks that positioning of a grooved plate and a lid plate provided with a driving element for generating an energy actuating the ink such as a piezoelectric element, a heat generating element and the like is very difficult resulting in a low rate of mass production and the performance of the resulting ink-jet head fluctuates. Accordingly, development of an ink-jet head capable of satisfactorily solving the above defects is earnestly desired.